


take my life, i'll hand it to you

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-02 12:33:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4060174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Louis is a hitman whose job becomes a million times harder when Harry Styles is the target.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiii!
> 
> So, here am I, starting another work when I literally just started one last week. I don't even know how the updating is going to work :///
> 
> So, some general stuff: Louis is a terrible human being without any real emotions and a shitty backstory (sorry) and Harry is a ray of sunshine yay. Liam is a distracted little shit, Niall just wants Harry to have a good time, and Zayn is in Cape Town because I'm a bitter bitch (sorry)
> 
> Here's trigger warning for everything: alcohol, drugs, murder, blood, violence, blah blah blah. Basically, I'm a despicable human being. Sorry.
> 
> There's a lot, like, A LOT of swearing because i'm an actual potty mouth (even though i hate swear words wtf i don't understand myself). So sorry for that too. 
> 
> An apology to the city of Chicago for my terrible inability to do proper research and not even reading a map. (yes, i'm making up places in Chicago) 
> 
> And a final apology to any hitmen/assassins who may read this and find it to be awfully inaccurate. Please don't kill me. I'm not a hitman/assassin myself, and i've never met one either (i think/hope) so I don't really know how the whole thing works. I'm just making things up.
> 
>  
> 
> ((title from Poison, by All Time Low. it sounds a lot more romantic than the story actually is, i guess))

_Harry Styles._

That’s all the yellow sleeved folder reads, a tiny scrawl in black spidery letters at the bottom right corner.

Louis has always thought it rather careless to just write the name on the folder and risk anyone seeing, but he’s not Boss and he doesn’t make the rules, so he doesn’t really question it. He just thinks it’s dumb.

He picks the folder off the floor, glances around to make sure there’s no one in the hallway, for security reasons, and closes the heavy hotel door, locking the door and putting the chain in place. He throws his gun on the couch of the little living room, watching the object bounce once before settling right on the edge of the hideous red piece of furniture, and heads to the tiny kitchenette, where he leaves the folder while he looks for something to eat.

There’s nothing in the fridge but a bottle of water, and Louis curses everything—especially the shitty hotels he’s sent when receiving jobs. They’re tiny, the rooms smell like stale smoke, and the bed creaks every time he moves.

At least he’ll be out of here by tonight. That’s always encouraging.

Deciding against ordering room service (because he doesn’t want to get food poisoning, thank you very much), he settles for opening the bottle of water and sits down on the red sofa, where his gun is precariously balancing from the edge.

_Harry Styles._

He thinks he’s heard the name somewhere, perhaps during jobs, or perhaps on tv, or maybe he hasn’t and he’s just making things up. it doesn’t matter, anyway. Whether he’s heard of him before or not, he’s about to find out every little detail about the guy’s life. Louis used to find it creepy, used to feel like he was intruding when he had to read files with information like the target’s favourite colour or the name of their first pet, because how do they even find that information? Clearly through more complex methods than a simple Google search. But now Louis doesn’t even care. He reads through the files with a very objective mindset, all businesslike and such, and scribbles all over the margins of the papers as if he were annotating a novel.

He empties the contents of the folder on the couch, catching the gun midair as it bounces off the couch due to the force of a stack of papers that probably compares in weight to a Les Miserables novel hitting the rickety old couch. There are photographs strewn about with tiny notes attached to them through paperclips, entire pages filled with information, even a USB with what Louis assumes must be a recorded phone conversation that could be of some use to him, or some video.

He decides to flip through the photographs first, because Louis is not a reader and he usually finds the papers filled to the brim with words to be boring and most of the time useless.

The first photograph that catches his eye is of a house—no, a mansion. A bloody mansion with brick walls and tall windows and vines crawling up the front. Attached to it, a note the size of a post it reads ‘ _Styles Residence. Blueprints attached.’_ Blueprints? Blueprints are fucking huge—surely they can’t fit into a tiny sleeved folder? They’re probably in the USB, so Louis doesn’t linger on it for too long and moves on.

Next is a family photo, featuring a pretty blonde girl, a boy with curls, a woman with dark hair and an older man looking all serious in comparison to the other three smiling faces. There’s no note on this picture, but at the back, scribbled in blue ink right in the middle, there’s a simple ‘2011’.

He moves on from that too, because he has no idea who these people are and truly, he doesn’t care. Well, he does, but only because he _has_ to. Because it’s his job. One of those people goes by the name of Harry Styles, and that’s exactly who Louis should be learning _everything_ about, memorising his face and making notes of his favourite places and favourite music.

Louis truly is not in the mood for these things, though. He’s fucking hungry.

So he gathers all the photographs into a neat pile, careful not to mess up the notes clipped to most of them, and places them on the table. Next to them, he sets all of the remaining papers, regretting having just thrown everything on the couch without any sense of order, because going through all of this shit in a organised manner is going to be a hell of a job.

A hell of a job that he will deal with after he fucking eats, dammit.

He truly hates these shitty hotels and their lack of food in the fridge.

Or maybe Louis is just spoiled and hotels are not actually supposed to have stocked fridges. Maybe Liam just spoils Louis a little too much on occasion. Like when he orders stocked fridges in the hotels Louis stays. Then again, this only happens in the better hotels, in the nice ones with nice smelling shampoo and lovely views of the Eiffel Tower or otherwise pretty landmarks that make hotel prices skyrocket, not on the shitty hotels with nasty intercontinental breakfast in ridiculously small towns where Louis receives folders with names and pictures and enough information to make stalkers happy.

So Louis orders pizza from some local small restaurant he finds after a quick Google search, which arrives quickly enough so that he has no excuse but to read the stupid file before taking off to wherever this job is supposed to take him.

He doesn’t read all of the papers, because he never does, and instead selects those with bullet points, pictures, and lots of bolded things, because that’s basically all the information he needs. That and a quick skim through the pictures, because his jobs never really take long enough so that he actually needs all of the information. His targets are usually easy to find, easy to get alone and even easier to end.

Here’s what he learns about his target before a text message from a blocked number tells him he has to head to the airport and fly out to Chicago:

  1.       Harry Styles was born in England, but his family moved to Chicago when he was just a baby due to business.
  2.       He is the youngest member of the Styles family.
  3.       He and his older sister, Gemma, are orphans. Their parents died on some boating accident several years back, leaving a company to their name and a very well stocked bank account to the two siblings.
  4.       Harry Styles is the actual scum of the earth, because Harry Styles took over Styles & Co. at the age of nineteen, when his parents died and Gemma decided business wasn’t for her and moved to London, and ever since, Harry has made under-the-table negotiations that involve poorly concealed illegal actions.
  5.       Illegal actions as money laundering, tax evasion, different forms of fraud, among other things.



Louis has no idea yet of what Styles & Co. actually does (because he hates reading, takes ages doing so), what the Styles originally intended the business to be, but he does know that something went wrong at some point and Harry Styles, at nineteen, made a lot of wrong choices, pissed off the wrong people, and now he’s a file in Louis’ hands. Which sucks for the poor bloke. Especially because he’s essentially still a kid—younger than Louis, even. It's a shame, is what it is.

Without dwelling too much on the issue (because Louis deals with these things often enough that he, to put it kindly, does not give a shit any more), he packs up the papers and photographs into the same yellow envelope they arrived in, picks up his carry-on (the only thing he ever travels with), and the keycard to the room.

He makes a quick stop at the front desk of the hotel that he never plans to visit again in his life, thanking the heavens his Portuguese is not as shit as it was the last time he visited Brazil and the man understands that he wants to check-out on the first try.

There’s a red, old Jetta outside the hotel. A quick look at the license plates provide confirmation that this indeed is the car that’s supposed to drive him to the airport, so he climbs into the backseat quietly, saying nothing to the man in the driver’s seat.

He’s sat on a private plane headed to Chicago about an hour later, his phone on the empty seat beside him and an array of papers strewn on the tiny table before him.

Louis absolutely hates flying. Hates not being on solid ground, hates that there’s no direct route out, and hates how trapped he feels. He always gets antsy in planes, even though the only times he flies, he does so in private planes where there’s only him and a handful of staff. He shouldn’t be worried at all, yet he always is a little on edge.

Louis is looking through the blueprints of the Styles Mansion, which yes, were in the USB, when his cellphone rings.

It’s Liam, so he ignores everything else in front of him and goes to answer as fast as he can. “Tomlinson.”

“Louis, hi!” Liam greets him, always the jolly lad. “I trust you’re on your way to Chicago.”

“I am, yes.” There used to be rules against cellphones on planes, Louis is sure. But who cares when you’ve got your own plane? “I’m actually using this time to look over the file you sent.”

“Good, good. It’s a big file, this one.” Liam points out, as if Louis hasn’t noticed how this is probably double the size of the usual ones.

“I’m guessing there’s some sort of special request because of it.” Because there always is, when things go slightly out of regular protocol, as are larger files.

Louis hears the familiar striking of computer keys on the other side of the line before Liam speaks again. “Yes, yes. The client wants you to do some extra field work on this one, Lou. Retrieve some intel for them.”

He’s had stranger requests, like that one time this woman had a very specific description of how her cheater of a husband was to die, or that particular request that the eye of some businessman was delivered to the client to ensure the kill had be done. Thankfully, it was Liam who dealt with the lunatics, while Louis only dealt with the… well, the probably equally deranged targets, really.  Nothing to be thankful for, actually.

Louis has a horrible job, but it is what it is.

“What kind of information?” Louis asks, because Liam has trailed off again and he’s typing away in his computer once more.

“Well, there have been some suspicious dealings within the company, and our client is someone important within it and these dealings seem to affect him. Stolen money and all that.”

“So they want me to kill the bloke over money?”

“They want you find out about these mysterious transactions, get the money back, and then take action.” Louis can picture Liam sitting in his posh office with his annoying decorative plants and his mahogany desk with neatly arranged papers all over it. Louis has only been in that office once, actually, a few years back, but it was enough for him to remember it quite vividly. “I know you hate close-range jobs, Lou, but Zayn is still in Cape Town and he won’t be done for a couple more days, apparently.”

Louis did not know this was a close-range job. Fuck.

He skims through the papers on the table, carelessly enough that he almost knocks his laptop to the floor, and comes across the particular page that describes what Louis is supposed to do.

_Approach target at a close distance. Await further instruction before finishing the job._

Alright. So there’s that.

It’s one thing to retrieve intel—like, sneak in, steal a laptop and hack into some networks or whatever, but an entirely different one to have to actually _approach_ the target.

“Wait, the ‘await further instruction’ thing is because of the stolen money?”

Liam seems to be distracted enough, because he doesn’t even scold Louis for just brining this up, after the subject has been breached and closed already. “I’m not sure about that, actually. Someone really hates this guy, s’all I know.”

 _‘I’m not sure about that.’_ That strikes Louis as odd, because Liam is always on point when it comes to research and all of that. But he figures he’s not supposed to question it. It’s his job to pull the trigger, not to question the morals of the employers.

“Tough luck.” Louis mutters, scanning the page as fast as he can to get some information on this job. It’s already giving him a headache and he hasn’t even landed in Chicago, fuck. “I’m just supposed to lounge around and wait for the order, then?”

Louis has dealt with one other ‘await further instruction’ kind of job, in France, some four years ago. He remembers spending almost three months there, ‘awaiting further instruction’ until he got a text from Liam that simply read ‘ _Go’._

It hadn’t been pleasant at all. Because Louis had spent three months with this target, this girl with pretty hair and a bright smile, and then had just put a bullet through her skull one morning.

“Yes.” Liam confirms, and Louis represses the urge to sigh. “We’re giving you a flat and everything. You’ll find a car in the airport parking lot with keys and an address. I’ll text you the car details in a bit.”

“Cool.” (not) “I’m going to finish reading this now.”

“Alright. Good luck, Louis.”

“Yeah.” With that, he hangs up the phone, letting it fall back onto the seat next to him.

He stares at the papers in front of him for a long time before he finally lets out that sigh he had repressed while talking to Liam, sinking into the leather seat.

(He doesn’t finish reading the file.)

(Louis is rubbish at his job.)

 

· · ·

 

Chicago is crowded as fuck.

There’s a hell of a lot of traffic, and unfortunately, Louis is not familiar enough with the city yet as to maneuver through less transited streets to get to his destination. So he has to sit through this whole ordeal, messing with the radio, never settling for any song. He doesn’t really know anything playing in the radio, anyway, and he’s not about to discover the wonders of American music.

He arrives at the flat Liam set up for him a little after sundown after an awkward drive with his phone’s GPS guiding him. He feels utterly useless letting a tiny electronic device guide him (not to mention stupid, because phones can be traced, dammit), and bows to drive around Chicago first thing tomorrow morning and get familiar with the place. Maybe find a map and memorise ways to the places he will frequent.

For now though, he needs dinner. And a plan.

He needs to approach this Harry Styles bloke, and somehow stay in his life in a way that the ‘await further instruction’ thing can work out. From what he figured out of the youngest Style kid after Liam’s call, he lives on his own in the huge mansion from that first photograph (which Louis can’t help but think must be rather lonely), and is under constant surveillance by at least four bodyguards at all times.

Talk about paranoid.

Not that Louis can blame him. He _is_ here to kill him.

So, bodyguards. Lots of them. A twenty-five year old man with a huge company under his control. How on earth is Louis supposed to approach him? There’s the job option, sure. He could fake a major in business or something and apply for a job. Then again, that doesn’t exactly guarantee him access to Styles.

Louis really doesn’t want to do this. This is _not_ how he does things. Louis stands at a distance and shoots a rifle through a window, or pulls targets into secluded places with charming conversation and the occasional sly smile and pulls the trigger where no one can see them. Or he poisons. Or even once, planted a bomb.

This is Zayn’s thing, not his. Zayn’s the pretty one, the one who ensnares targets and meddles in their lives until he is given the order to end them, hence Cape Town. Zayn is the expert when it comes to ‘await further instruction’, the _spy_ jobs, you could call them. Louis gets attached and hesitates to pull the trigger when he gets too close, like in France.

Liam is an idiot who probably wants to see Louis crash and burn.

 

· · ·

 

Louis has a plan.

It’s carefully crafted plan that he develops after hacking into Style’s phone and listening in several conversations the young millionaire made throughout the day—one to the dry cleaners, one to some juice place where he had ordered some organic shake, another to his driver, and a final, more useful one to a friend.

The poor kid is incredibly boring, probably more so than Louis himself, who had spent all evening feasting on the cereal he found in the cupboards of the fully stocked kitchen (thanks Liam), watching a shitty american Tv show about law students, and listening in to conversations that he shouldn’t listen to.

Harry Styles is going clubbing tonight, after much insistence from some ‘Ni’ (who Louis finds information on among the heaps of papers that make up Styles’ file). Louis has a particularly hard time spying on this conversation, because it happens while Louis is simultaneously preparing tea and his fourth bowl of cereal of the day, which means he has to keep an eye on the computer, look for papers regarding this new character whom Styles refers to as ‘Ni’ and google the place they are talking about all at once.

It’s a feat that Louis doesn’t knock the cereal bowl over, or lets the kettle burn down the apartment.

So Louis has to be at a club named _The Gallery_ (pretentious little name, if you ask him) at midnight.

The plan consists of six simple steps:

1)      Get to The Gallery

2)     Somehow manage to get inside The Gallery

3)     Find Styles

4)     Have Styles buy him a drink. Or a lot of drinks.

5)     Leave

6)     Somehow bump into Styles in the near future and find a way to stay in his life.

Okay, step six may lack a bit in detail, could probably be split into at least ten more steps, but Louis doesn’t care. He’s satisfied with what he has now. He’ll cross the bridge that is step number six after steps one to five are completed. He’ll give Zayn a call and ask for advice or something, if all else fail.

Louis is a professional. Louis can do this.

This is so unlike his more regular job that simply consist of ‘find the target, kill the target’, but Louis is confident he can do it. After all, he did grow up with a training that is more appropriate of a spy than of a hitman. This job is essentially a spying job—infiltrate, obtain information. He knows how to do this. He’s no Zayn, no, but he still knows what he’s doing.

Sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter: @a_gskrth  
> tumblr: louhazlou.tumblr.com


	2. A Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took me ages. i'm a lazy bird.  
> nothing massively important???? like, this is boring. but meh, it gets a bit more interesting from here, i guess.

 

Louis is, to put it lightly, exhausted. He could really use a nap right now—maybe four or five of them, actually.

He’s jet-lagged and sleep deprived, having slept a total of maybe six hours in the last forty-eight hours. He’d flown from Spain to Brazil the second his last assignment was completed, and slept a total of four out of the ten hours the flight takes. He’d flown on a commercial airline, and the other six hours he’d been scowling at the baby fussing on the seat next to him, and biting his tongue to not snap at the poor mother who didn’t seem to grasp the concept of ‘raising children’.

His visit to Brazil had been nothing but a pit stop, because he spent about twenty minutes in the hotel before Styles’ file had arrived, and had left that very same night, after his attempt at reading the insane amount of information and his struggle with the food.

The flight to Chicago was spent between the call with Liam, the file, and _not_ sleeping at all. He’d opted to play a silly iPhone game instead of napping between periods of reading, because Louis knows himself, and he knows that if he had closed his eyes even for a second, he wouldn’t have woken up until the plane had landed on Chicago.

So here he is, in a club, sleep deprived and plain tired. Liam would be very disappointed in him. It’s a general rule to not work if you’re not up to your one hundred percent, and Louis isn’t a fan of breaking that particular rule, but he had to act quickly if he wanted to get the plan in motion anytime soon. Who knows when Harry Styles would leave his office-house-office-house routine again?

Besides, it’s not like he needs to make a quick escape, or aim a gun or anything of the sort.

He just needs to meet the bloke.

The Gallery is a crowded little hole in the wall that smells of artificial smoke that makes Louis’ eyes ache with the lack of sleep and chemicals being pumped into the air and his visibility shit because of all of the swaying bodies and the stupid smoke.

He’s taken camp on a spot near the bar, off to the side, where he’s hiding behind a tall glass of something that goes by the unoriginal name of Melon Ball. It tastes of vodka and (unsurprisingly) melon. Louis is not a fan, but at least the drink looks nice, all neon green and tiny decorative things on the brim of the glass.

He’s kept an eye on Styles for the past half an hour. He’s with a very smiley blonde—Niall Horan, a person important enough in Styles life to have his own little bunch of pages in the file that Liam had delivered to Louis. He’s childhood friend and fellow employee at Styles & Co, the man Styles had referred to as ‘Ni’ during that phone call Louis had shamelessly listened to. Horan is loud, Irish-American, and a faux blonde. He’s probably on his sixth shot of tequila and still hasn’t fallen on his arse, which even Louis can admit is sort of impressive.

Styles, on the other hand, is… pretty. There’s no other word for it, really. He’s just _pretty_. He’s dressed in a patterned shirt, buttoned only halfway up, which allows Louis to see splotches of ink all over his chest from where he’s standing near the bar, even when Styles is a good way across the club. His hair is rather long, curling over his shoulders in messy wavy things that were maybe ringlets when his hair was shorter, and he’s clutching a neon drink too, very similar to Louis’, but he’s barely drank at all.

Unlike Louis who is already halfway through his third.

He did surveillance of the place beforehand, spotting cameras and figuring the right angles to avoid his face being caught. He has mapped out every exit and all. Louis is prepared, and his plan is foolproof.

Except there is the tiny issue of approaching Harry Styles, who from what Louis can see, has three close-range bodyguards, and probably more on a farther range. Maybe some outside, even. Not to mention he’s on that part of the club that’s separated from the general, less rich public with a velvet chain and a two men the size of gorillas standing guard in front of it. One of them holds a list, which unfortunately doesn’t include Louis’ alias, and the other one is doing a lazy pat down to any male who walks through (which aren’t many, but still, sexist).

The pat down may be a bit of a concern, because Louis is carrying a gun and a knife, but they’re well concealed under clothing (the gun in small and hidden snugly at the back of his jeans, and the knife is strapped beneath his left sleeve, for easy access), and with the laziness of the man doing the frisking, Louis doubts he’ll find them.

So Louis waits for a window.

And the window doesn’t come.

And Louis is growing more annoyed by the second.

If this were any other, more regular job, he’d already be done. He would have poisoned his drink or something and been out of here before his body his the ground, but _no_. Here he is, stuck next to the bar in a shitty-smelling club, with a neon drink in his hand like he’s twenty years old.

It’s around the time when a brunette girl tries to chat him up that Louis decides he’s had enough. He’s going to the bathroom (because alcohol is utter _trash_ on Louis’ bladder), and then he’s going to find his way into that sectioned VIP area where Harry Styles is and get this over with. He doesn’t need a window. He’ll _make_ the fucking window himself.

With a brisk excuse directed to the brunette (who somehow has started to talk to Louis about her drunk friends and their poor choices like she’s any better than them, which, boring), he leaves for the bathroom, turning away when he passes the camera just outside the tiny dark hallway that leads to them. He’s supposed to be invisible, after all.

He does his business quickly, and he’s just washing his hands because hygiene and all that, when someone else walks into the bathroom.

It’s Harry Styles.

Actual Harry Styles.

This is Louis’ window.

They regard each other with a polite nod of the head through the mirror, but other than that Styles moves on quickly. Louis has about a minute to think up a plan to execute the second Styles joins him at the sinks.

“Excuse me, do you have the time?”

Okay, less than thirty seconds.

Louis makes a point of not looking at Styles, who asks for the time while he pees, apparently, and looks at his phone instead. “Half past one.”

He really should be in bed right now.

“Great. Thanks.”

At least he wasn’t the one to initiate contact. That ought to count for something, right?

He can see the back of Styles’ hair through the mirror, can see the horridly patterned shirt and tight skinny jeans clinging to his legs like a second skin. He’s not surprised at all. Louis has seen enough pictures of Harry Styles in the last twenty-four hours to know he dresses like millionaire with poor fashion sense, but it’s still sort of strange to see him in person.

The shirt’s probably ten times more expensive than the one Louis is wearing (not that he doesn’t have the funds) (contract killing is _very_ lucrative, actually) (he just prefers not to spend too much on things he’s going to have to burn at some point, anyway) (blood stains suck, fyi), because ugly patterns cost thousands in this capitalist world. And it’s not that it doesn’t look good—it’s just an odd fashion choice.

But right. Job. He’s got a job to do, and it’s not to be the fashion police.

Styles approaches the sinks, and Louis pretends to fiddle with his phone.

Conversation starters. Excuses to speak.

“Could I borrow your phone? Mine’s out of signal.” Louis waves his phone in the air, and Styles looks over at Louis, who’s shooting him his most non-threatening smile.

“Sure.” He dries his hands on his jeans and pulls out an iPhone from his pocket (how did that thing even manage to fit in the pocket of skinny jeans?), unlocks it by pressing his thumb to the home button, and hands it to Louis.

“Thanks.”

He makes quick work of tapping a random phone number and then brings it to his ear. It doesn’t even ring—it straight up tells him the number doesn’t exist, and he paints a frown on his face and curses under his breath. “Voicemail. Dammit.”

“Maybe their phone’s out of signal too?” Styles offers, like malfunctioning phones is an actual thing in this day and age, and Louis shrugs and hands the phone back.

“Dunno. Probably ignoring me. Twat left me here with no means to get back home.”  He answers, the lie rolling off his tongue easily. “I’m William.”

Is his alias even a William? He thinks so. Jesus, he needs sleep. Liam is going to kill him, very literally speaking.

Styles extends a hand at him, everything about him polite. Polite smile, polite handshake, polite fucking existence. “Harry. Nice to meet you. Sorry about your friend.”

“He’s not my friend.” Louis says, momentarily looking at his reflection in the mirror, pleased that Styles is not showing any signs of leaving. “Literally just met him. Don’t know why I trust these people, honestly.”

“That’s not very smart.” Styles says, pairing the statement with a small amused smile and something like mirth in his eyes. This is way too easy for Louis.

“Oi, I’m _plenty_ smart. Just don’t know a lot of people. Just moved to Chicago, actually. Last week.” Louis is an ace liar.

“So you’re trying to make friends, then?”

“I’m—” _What even_. “Yeah, you could say so.”

Anyone would think a guy with a small army for bodyguards would be less friendly, but if there’s anything Louis has learned in his life, is to expect absolutely anything.

“Would you like to join us, then? If you want to, of course. I’m here with some friends and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. And like, so you’re not alone, I mean. Unless you’d rather get a taxi or—”

 _Jesus_ , he’s rambling. Louis is not a fan of rambling, even if it usually means that whatever he’s working on the target is actually working. “I’ll join you.”

Styles beams. “Great! Come on, then.”

That was way easier tan Louis was expecting it to be. He had figured he would need to work his way around bodyguards, which is always a pain in the ass (especially when there’s more than one) (not that Louis can’t handle bodyguards) (he just prefers his job to be simpler from time to time), or maybe Styles would be an unfriendly twat and Louis would have had to suffer through having some sort of conversation.

But here he is, accidentally having met the bloke on the bathroom, of all places, already having been invited to join him and Niall Horan and the bunch of ladies hanging to them without much of an effort.

“So, where did you move from?” Styles asks him when they’re making their way out of the bathrooms, and Louis sees a man in a suit appear from the far corner of the hallway that separates the dancing bodies and door they just emerged from. He pays no mind to him, though, and instead focuses on dodging the security camera in the hallway, tilting his face just so to avoid light hitting him directly.

There’s also Styles’ question. Right. So his alias’ name is William (probably) (hopefully), and he’s twenty-five, the same age as Harry Styles. He moved from, what was it? Arizona? Atlanta? (he truly needs to pay attention to the files he is sent, dammit) Louis is almost sure it’s a place that starts with an A.

“Atlanta.” Louis absolutely hates Arizona. He figures he’d remember if the person he’s supposed to be for god knows how long were from a place he hates.

Louis’ alias doesn’t have a job, but he has a degree in economics, which, boring. But Liam probably set that up in hopes it could be of some use to Louis, considering his target belongs in the business world. He moved to Chicago because he’s always had childhood dreams of moving to The Windy City. He’s twenty-five years old. He remembers something in the file about a family in some European country.

But Louis can’t remember his fake last name, so there’s that.

He should pull out his wallet and check the ID he got for this particular assignment at some point during the night before someone asks for a proper introduction or something.

This is another thing he hates about these kind of jobs. He can’t keep track of things. He’s shit remembering tiny details, unlike Zayn who can create an entirely new persona with entirely different characteristics from his own and work it without problem.

Louis could have his entire fake life scripted for him to only memorize and he would still forget his fake last name.

Aliases are something that takes practice, and no matter how much theoretical knowledge The Boss might have had trained into him when he was younger, he’s never actually done this but _once_ in real life, and once is not enough practice.

Especially when you epically fail.

“I was just there last week!” Louis knows this. Liam was kind enough to provide him with Style’s schedule of the last six months. Useless, in Louis’ mind, and twenty minutes of his life wasted while reading it, but well. “I didn’t get to have a look around, but it seemed really nice from what little I did see.”

“Why would you go someplace and not have a look around?”

“Work.” Styles answers simply, in a tone that clearly marks that Louis won’t be getting more of that. Louis sees someone straight ahead, dancing on a table like a drunken teenager, someone who vaguely resembles that Niall Horan guy he’s not had a clear visual of except from the pictures in the file. “Oh, there’s Niall.”

Louis is just too good.

“The guy on the table?” Louis asks, trying not to sound as displeased as he feels. He even manages to chuckle and all. “He your friend?”

“Like my brother.” Horan spots them, and he shouts something that sounds like absolute gibberish. “I think he’s had one too many.”

“I’d say more like ten too many.” Louis points out, and by this point they’ve reached the area section off with the velvet chord, where the two big men are stood like guard dogs ready to pounce on anyone who dares intrude.

The chain is removed instantly as they approach, and Styles is let through without any trouble whatsoever, but when Louis goes to nonchalantly follow, a hand is brought up in his way, forcing him to stop.

Styles is frowning when he looks over his shoulder. “Is there a problem?”

“This is not an authorized guest, Mr. Styles.” The man to Louis’ right, the one holding out the hand, points out.

“He’s with me.” Styles says it as though this should solve every problem in the world, but it clearly doesn’t, because not everyone is as trusting of stranger as Harry Styles is, sadly.

The man begins saying something that Louis doesn’t catch, but Styles cut him off.

“Surely you’re not about to tell me you can’t let him through.”

The man looks like he wants to argue, but ultimately shuts up and just lets Louis through without further incident. The chain is closed behind him, and the guards return to their previous statuesque positions.

Louis makes quick work of mapping out the area—the two men at the entrance, and the three bodyguards standing stoically around the place, all with intercoms in their ears and guns prodding from their sides, poorly concealed by their suits. There’s Niall Horan, climbing down from the table with impressive dexterity for someone who was just dancing drunkenly on said table, not spilling one drop of the drink in his hand. There are three women surrounding him who Louis cares little for, among other guests scattered around.

“Harry!” Niall Horan is coming their way, each arm slung around a girl while another one walks behind him, but still close. “Where’d you go to?”

“Bathroom, Ni.” Styles sounds amused, if anything. “I told you, remember?”

“No, you didn’t.” Horan protests, and the girl to his right, a brunette with dyed tips, giggles ridiculously. He has a ridiculously strong Irish accent for someone who is only half Irish. “I’d remember.”

“Right, then. Sorry.” Clearly, Styles is just humoring him. “This is William.”

The blonde Irishman turns to look at Louis, finally, who just paints on a polite smile and waves. “Hi.”

He disentangles himself from the two girls and is basically on Louis’ face within the second, hand extended much like Styles had done earlier. Albeit, he is a tad bit too close, close enough that Louis can smell alcohol and smoke clinging to his clothes, but he makes an effort to ignore it and shakes his hand, only moving away slightly. “Niall. Nice to meet you!”

“How much did you drink while I was gone?” Styles asks, and Niall backs away from Louis with a bright smile and twinkling eyes. “You didn’t smell when I left.”

“Nick spilt his drink on me, the asshole.” Niall says, pushing his own drink forward in Styles’ direction, as if reenacting the scene. He manages to take a step back to avoid the few droplets that escape the glass from the violent motion. “He was annoyed because apparently, I stole his date.”

“He didn’t bring a date.”

“Exactly!” Niall exclaims very, _very_ loudly, much more louder than is necessary, even with the music and all. He’s definitely more Irish than American, Louis decides. “Amy spent all of three minutes with him!”

“So he just poured his drink on you like an angry high school girl?” Louis asks, not wanting to get pushed out of the conversation just yet.

“Yes!” Niall all but screams, waving his hands wildly and nearly spilling his drink on Louis this time. “Honestly H, why do you keep inviting him?”

Styles just shrugs. “Where is he now?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Horan says simply. “Will, would you care for a drink?”

“Sure.” He’s already surpassed his alcohol allowance. “Something with tequila.”

“Let’s do shots!” Horan says excitedly.

Louis will start seeing double if he takes even one shot. “I actually was thinking of something lighter?”

“I think you shouldn’t drink anything else, Ni.” Styles pipes up from where he’s standing next to Louis. Horan rolls his eyes and finishes whatever it is he’s drinking in one fast gulp, which earns him a pointed glare from the curly haired boy. “ _Niall._ ”

“I’m—woah.” He closes his eyes for a moment, shutting them tightly before reopening them again, the sour look dissipating in about two seconds. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, whatever you say.” Styles turns to the three girls who are still lingering behind Horan, having a polite conversation that stops the moment they spot Styles. “Keep an eye on him, please?”

“Of course!” A pretty brunette says, jumping to Horan’s side. “Don’t worry about him, he’s in good hands.”

Louis doesn’t think so, with the way she seems rather drunk herself, but whatever. It’s the thought that counts… or something like that.

“Sorry about that.” Styles tells him when the girls are carrying Horan away. “He had a, um, a bad day.”

Louis shrugs. “It’s alright, I don’t judge.” Styles smiles appreciatively at that. “He seems like good fun.”

“So, about that drink?”

 

· · ·

 

They settle on the side of the small private bar the VIP section possesses to chat about Louis’ first impressions of Chicago, his lack of a job, and how utterly bored he’s been because he knows no one. Louis drinks coke and rum through all this process, a single serving, mind you, in an attempt to not die from alcohol poisoning and not looking like a complete bore who doesn’t drink.

He doesn’t start seeing double, thank the heavens, but he does get a little louder and giddier.

Luckily, Styles also gets louder and giddier as he orders three rounds of whiskey. “You’re good company, Will. Don’t know why your friends ditched you.”

Louis appreciates the compliment—it makes him feel all warm and fuzzy inside through his drunken haze. “You’re not so bad yourself, Curly.”

  1. Jesus, he needs to stop with the alcohol and pray Liam doesn’t find out.



It a sincere response, at least. Louis expected something different—perhaps a cold person with boring conversation and perhaps a furrowed brow, not… this. Styles is warm and friendly, smiley, polite, and very good with conversation. He keeps asking Louis questions, and Louis keeps making up stories and trying to shift the conversation back to Styles, trying to bring the character described in his file to life, but Styles is ridiculously good at giving little away.

It’s not like Louis expected to collect intel right away, but it would’ve been nice.

“Thank you.” Styles smiles, and a dimple appears at the side of his cheek that Louis feels the ridiculous need to poke with his finger.

He doesn’t, thank god. He’s still got some sort of self-control.

“Anyway, I think I should get going.” Style’s smile falters slightly as Louis stands up. “It was nice meeting you, Harry.”

“It was nice meeting you too. We should meet up again.”

Louis nods and extends his hand. “Can I borrow your phone again?” Styles offers the iPhone again, and Louis makes quick work of typing down his number. “I’m expecting an invitation to that Indian place.”

Styles beams when Louis hands the phone back, nodding quickly. “Of course! I’m giving you a proper tour of Chicago.”

“That sounds nice.”

They part ways and Louis collects his rental car from the valet outside the club and drives to the flat with an irresponsible alcoholic buzz and little regard from speed limits. In his defense, you simply can’t be behind the wheel of a Porsche (or any other fast car, really) and not hit the accelerator.

He doesn’t kill anyone because he’s a good driver, and by the time he gets to the apartment, he really just wants to lie down and get some sleep.

He tosses his gun on the table by the entrance of the apartment, locks the door behind him and tosses his shirt somewhere in the spotless living room. The place looks inhabited enough, and while Louis appreciates some order, the tossed shirt gives the place some semblance of having been lived in.

He toys with the knife he hid under his sleeve as he makes his way to the shower, twirling between his fingers expertly, tossing it into the air every now and then until he tosses it above the piles his jeans and his underwear makes on the bathroom floor, next to his cellphone.

When he comes out of the shower sans alcohol and smoke smell, he throws himself on the bed and retrieves his actual real cellphone from the drawer on the bedside table. He has no messages from Liam, which is good, but he does have one from Zayn that simply reads ‘ _good luck’._

Louis doesn’t dwell too much on that, doesn’t think of Cannes or of empty hazel eyes, and tosses the phone back into the drawer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for complaints/questions/greetings/etcetera:  
> twitter: @a_gskrth  
> tumblr: louhazlou.tumblr.com (im new here, be nice)
> 
> ✌️


End file.
